As conventional methods for recording various types of information, the method of direct recording on paper, the method of recording on floppy disks, hard disks, compact disks (CDs), digital versatile disks (DVDs), and other recording media involving computers, etc. are known. Recently, along with the spread of the computer, much use has particularly been made of such recording media.
As a method of recording several types of information on a printed circuit board, on the other hand, there is the method of displaying dots at suitable locations on the printed circuit board and recording small amounts of information by the combination of these dots. Other methods of recording information on printed circuit boards include the method using bar codes, the method of stamping printed circuit boards with dot or check patterns, and the method of combining these. In these cases, the recorded information is expressed by images comprised of the dots, lines, patterns, or combinations of the same or the positions of the dots, lines, etc.
Along with the spread of the computer, the main method for recording information has become recording information on recording media converted to a binary format. Great strides have been made in such recording media along with the rapid advances made in computer hardware and software. The method of recording information on a recording medium is now basically to link 1 bit of information with the smallest recording unit on the recording medium (hereinafter referred to as “1 dot”, the location where the smallest recording unit is recorded also being referred to as a “dot”). With the skyrocketing amount of information for recording in recent years, therefore, the recording capacity of recording media is rapidly being used up.
The main object of the present invention, in view of the problem of the limited recording capacity and taking note of the characteristic of color, is to provide a method of expression of a computer object using color as a medium for expressing data or information and linking the type or difference of color printed on a dot with a plurality of data etc, and thereby increasing the amount of information per dot to an amount more than 1 bit (for example, 2 bits, 8 bits, 16 bits, etc.) and thereby overcoming the limitation in the recording (or storage) capacity.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a method of recording, reproduction, and communication of a computer object using the method of expression of a computer object using color.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide an apparatus for recording and/or reproduction of a computer object comprised by using the method of expression of a computer object using color.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide a method and apparatus for recording a large amount of data or information using general paper, plastic, or other inexpensive recording media.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide a recording medium using the method of recording data or information using color.
A still further object of the present invention is to provide a method of preparation of a code using recording of data or information using color.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a method and apparatus enabling transmission of a large amount of information by applying the recording of data or information using color as explained above to a communications line and communications apparatus.